"WHAT CHANGED?" Mailah asked.
The question hung in the air, heavy and unadorned, filling the narrow space between them.
Grayson did not blink. His eyes seemed to swallow the dim light of the room. He didn't move his hand from hers; if anything, his grip became a permanent fixture, an anchor he had dropped without realizing he was drifting.
He paused, his jaw working as if he were trying to swallow a stone. He wasn't a man of poetry; he was a creature of hierarchies and power. Yet, as he looked at Mailah, the cold logic that had defined his existence for eons felt like a suit of armor that had grown three sizes too small.
"I didn't change," he continued, his gaze dropping to the bandages on her fingers. "The variables did. You aren't a silhouette, Mailah. You are... a complication I failed to account for."
Mailah felt the heat of his palm against hers, a stark contrast to the cool night air.
